392 Advanced Human Resource Management

Questions and AssignmentQ'1' Discuss the characteristics of three categories of employees employed by multinationals.

What are their advantages and disadvantages?

Q'2' outline the main characteristics of ethnocentric, polycentric, regiocentric and geocentricapproaches to international staffing practices.

Q'3' What are the main important criteria MNCs :hould use when selecting expatriates?What factors may influence these criteria?

Q.4. Discuss the reasons for failure and success of expatriates.

Q'5' Explain the types of training imparted to expatriates and what factors can ensure theirsuccess.

Q'6' write short notes on: a) Repatriation; b) Expatriate adjustment model; c) language training.

Assignment

Interview any expatriate manager in any MNC and find out the challenges he is facing andalso his unique experiences, if any, in India. If it is possible to interview expatriates from othercountries find out what is common between them and what is different in their service in India.

CASE #=:N#=

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The Seiko group established in 1937 consists of three distinct companies-seiko corporation,Seiko Instruments Inc. and Seiko Epson Corporation. They operate independently but function asa cohesive unit in the design, production and marketing of theiimepieces that established the Seikoname' The company has around 70 subsidiaries worldwide with over 10,000 employees. Throughits global network, Seiko corporation markets the timepieces produced by SII una s"ito Epson. In1988, Seiko completed the world's first automated assembling system for multipurpose, small-lotproduction of watch movements.

The organisation's structure is constrained by British standards in some respects, in commonwith other Japanese companies operating in the UK.

HR Srnerecv

The General Manager (GM), who is Scottish, has worked on the site for over 10 yearsand in all these years th_ere have been only two visits by a personnel representative from Japan.The main objectives of the visits was for the I{Q to *.r"y the Japanese employees workingoverseas.

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The Gorporation's stance is basically that in the overseas countries, the personnel function

shorld operate entirely autonomously. tts t"itty bizarre to have identical policies and procedures

in sites in as diverse locations as Japan, chi;ra, Thailand, Malaysia and the UK' Generally the

company tries to treat its employees'fairly well and it's left up to local personnel to follow local

standards.

-?f it wasn't for Mr X (a Japanese senior manager) you wouldn't know you worked for a Japanese

company. There isn't really anything Japanese aOolt it at all. I say to people: yott will probabty 1nd

tfib company is not like your typical Japanese company''

Most personnel policies of the Scottish site are made locally; the site is given targets and a

nee range to achieve them 'the Scottish way'. The company's policy is to respect local ways-

fe,r q, to adapt to local management practices 100 per cent within the Scottish location' People

mragement is designed locally, mainly by the General Manager' They have constructed a policy

maual and handbOok containing mostly local practices' They are first written in draft' involving

iul rhe managers at this stage, agreed ,porr, urd then formalised. Then they are placed on notice

bmds and employees are notified. Revisions are initiated as required by legislation, for example'

cfornges in working practices. The GM has spent some time working in the USA (California) with

seiko and has introduced some californian practices into the site.

RrcnumtenrAll practices are driven from the Scottish site. In Japan they select school leavers for

operators. Initially, the Japanese Manufacturing Manager had a preference for school leavers and

saEtragers and wanted the Scottrsh site to recruit them. He was involved in the recruitment of the

fts 90 employees who fulfilled this age criterion' When these 90 young recruits were assessed on'

fcr example, how they behaved against their elders on site, they were considered unreliable and

Bustomed to this kind of work'. Absenteeism was a problem at this stage' He believed that

-rfoey had no work ethic at this age'. The Personnel Manager at the time was the only personnel

ni*nager of a Japanese company in Livingston to say: 'I will not employ school leavers and

E8agers'. He thinks the policy of recruiting school leavers works in Japan because youngsters

E more obedient and better educated.

()wnseas TRANING

Watch manufacturing has been in operation for over four years. A lot of initial training was

fue in Seiko's subsidiaries in Singapore and the Far East; a lot of overseas trainers came over, and

rorted with the operators for about three months. The on-site practices have been refined over

:foe -vears. Production supervisors go over to Japan every year to learn new processes' If the

Sfdish site had a disastrous manufacturing problem, a Japanese would come over' Recently' they

eere had an engineering design problem in the printers section and quality people came over from

Ial@- They stayed for three days to sort things out'

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394 Advanced Human Resource Management

What has been brought.from overse_as is mainlyknowledge. When the watch manufacturingwas set up there were no processes in existence. Twenty four employees were sent over to Japanto learn how to operate the bq'uippent. They came back and eventually increased the number ofpeople in the area and developed their own systems. The senior manufacturing engineer goes toiapin for training and looking at business opportunities, and to Singapore for transferofproductionlines and further training. Generally, no one goes over to Japan to train, although things are changing-they arg becoming,more interested in what Scotland is doing with regard to technical processes.

Scotland has,taken Japanese ideas and is now running some of their machinesmore efficiently.

TRlrr'rrr.rc DrrrenerucEs BEfiqEEN JApAN AND SconqnoIn.Scotland, the company encourages people to develop at operator level, both in-hcuse and

in colleges and other educational establishments, and finances their.further education.

In Japan, because employees remain in the company a long time, they have large, establishedinternal training and recognised formal qualifications. They have extensive support resources, forexample, engineering and technical support. Rank-and-file employees do not go to college oruniversity. because they are not available to everyone at the company's expense, but sometimesmanagers do attend short courses in these establishments: However, the company will pay up to 50per cent of the cost of out-sourced English classes if employees wish to learn the language.

Teau Wonrcruc

The subsidiary management has introduced the Japanese way of teamworking. The localmanagers know the Japanese practices such as total quality management and quality circles, and

use them in a modified way. The management does not push Japanese quality initiatives; they are

happy for the employees to apply the tools they prefer. Also, in Japan, they run quality circles afterworking hours on a voluntary non-paid basis but the Scottish managers would not be abile toimplement them here because the operators would want to be paid overtime. In addition, themanageis believe that such practices as twice daily exercises in the office, customary in theJapanese sites, would not work here 'because the company is not a school or army'.

:

CorusensuAl DEcrsroN MAKTNG

The GM's observation from working in Seiko plants in Japan is that Japanese style consemraldecision making offers unsatisfactory compromises. He says decisions take more time to be made.Also, if junior Japanese managers are involved they will not speak their mind because they feelinhibited, for cultural and traditional reasons. In the Scottish site, employees are more frank.

'l would imagine that having worked here for a number of years our boss probably prefers whathe may have initially interpreted as a fairly antagonistic discourse-it's a bit more stimulatingand actually more things are aired and moved fonrrard.'

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Human Resource Processes in Multinationals 395

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These are decided locally. There is considerable competition for skilled local staff. Seiko in

Livingston competes against the likes of Motorola ana !!V for employees. Consequently, their pay

is coripetitive, with reiards for hard work. They also offer paternity leave, pensions, life assurance

and sick pay.

IttousrnnL RELATIoNS

The Scottish site is not unircnised, but the Japanese sites have company-based unions'

Moreover, in scotland there are grievance procedures in place to enable the einployees to file

claims against their boss, but such a system does not exist in the Japanese sites' Senior managers

believe that the history of local trade unions still make the employees suspicious of management'

even today. The management has to work harder to gain trust and get people to buy in and get them

to come up with ideas and work on problems themselves'

In Scotland, they make employees redundant if they have to. In Japan, seiko does not do

this. The company offers jobs for life, and if need be, transfers employees to holding divisions

rather than make them redundant.

Questions

Q.1, Why ha.!.t@,-parent company adopted an HRM strategy which would allow overseas

subsidiaries to perform their persouel functiorr autonomously?

e.2. In what respect is the Scottish subsidiary's recruitment policy different from its Japanese

parent company, and whY?

e.3. Why has the local management team decided not to implement some of the Japanese parent

company's Practices in Scotland?

e.4. In what ways have the local environment enabled the subsidiary to act locally as they see fit

and thereby go against the HQ's current HR policies?